Kerrey's Tortuous Dance With Clinton

January 30, 2000|By Naftali Bendavid. Naftali Bendavid is the Tribune White House correspondent.

WASHINGTON — When Nebraska Democrat Bob Kerrey announced earlier this month that he was leaving the Senate, President Clinton offered a warm tribute. "Our government and nation are better because of Bob Kerrey's public service," Clinton said. "Hillary and I wish him well."

Beneath the graciousness lies a history of intriguing friction between Kerrey and Clinton--both Baby Boomers, both political stars, both men of great ambition and restlessness.

Kerrey, 56 and Clinton, 53, are centrist Democrats. In the Vietnam War--their generation's defining conflict--one lost a leg in combat while the other had no interest in serving except to protect his "political viability."

They met as up-and-coming governors of often-neglected states, Nebraska and Arkansas. When they vied for higher office seven years ago, Kerrey the war hero faltered and Clinton the deft politician soared. From that time, Kerrey has surfaced at key moments as a reproachful figure in the drama of the Clinton presidency.

Kerrey generally has supported Clinton, as one would expect of leaders of the same party. He has also taken him on in unusually personal, sometimes searing ways, calling him a "liar" and publicly agonizing over Clinton's character and actions. A supporter of Democratic candidate Bill Bradley, Kerrey took to the campaign trail last week to criticize Vice President Al Gore's role in the 1995-96 campaign financing scandal.

The Kerrey-Clinton dance is a compelling study in personal and political relationships. The special tension between them did not take long to emerge.

In the 1992 race for the Democratic presidential nomination, Kerrey at first said he would not make Clinton's record on Vietnam an issue, but--as Clinton solidified his lead--Kerrey changed his mind.

Kerrey, after all, had won the Medal of Honor as a Navy SEAL for leading an attack on a Viet Cong outpost. During the attack, a grenade took off the bottom of his right leg, but Kerrey continued to direct the operation.

Clinton vacillated on how to handle Vietnam. At first he avoided the draft by promising to join the ROTC, but then he withdrew and took his chances with the draft, though he was never called. His explanations of his behavior evolved in the 1992 campaign as new facts emerged.

After laying off for a while, Kerrey began saying Clinton could not win the general election because the Republicans would peel him "like a boiled peanut" on the Vietnam issue.

Once Clinton became president, Kerrey never seemed to know whether to treat him with respect or scorn. In 1993, the Nebraska senator made an enormous drama out of deciding whether to support Clinton's budget plan, one of the first defining votes of the Clinton presidency and an extremely close one.

Most Democrats fell into line; this was, after all, the first Democratic budget in a dozen years. Kerrey publicly agonized for days. When the vote came, he rose dramatically from his Senate seat to say he would support the plan, but he blasted Clinton for timidity.

The budget "challenges Americans too little," Kerrey said, and was full of compromises that merit only "disdain, distrust and disillusionment." He told Clinton melodramatically, "I tell you this: I could not and should not cast the vote that brings down your presidency." With the help of Gore's tie-breaking vote, the plan passed 51-50.

Since then, Kerrey has not hesitated to scold Clinton or to express disappointment. He criticized the president's health-care reform plan, questioning whether Clinton was being honest about it.

In a 1994 appearance on ABC's "This Week With David Brinkley," Kerrey criticized two of Clinton's biggest initiatives--crime and health care. "He didn't do a very good job on the crime bill," the senator said.

Kerrey, an expert on entitlement programs such as Social Security, was asked at a 1995 National Press Club lunch whether Clinton had shown leadership on the issue. "No," Kerrey said bluntly.

As the 1996 election approached, Kerrey seemed so enthusiastic about Republican nominee and fellow war hero Bob Dole--and so lukewarm about Clinton--that Tribune columnist Thomas Hardy wrote, "Bob Kerrey might be pulling for Clinton's re-election, but a Dole victory wouldn't break his heart."

Kerrey disputed that in a letter. "President Clinton has proved himself an exemplary commander in chief and a leader whose core beliefs and dreams are shared by millions of middle-class Americans," Kerrey wrote. "That is why I support his re-election."

It did not take long after that re-election for Kerrey to again begin tormenting the Clinton White House. Republicans were lined up against Clinton's nominee to head the Central Intelligence Agency, Anthony Lake.

At a sensitive point in the confirmation struggle, Kerrey, the senior Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, told Lake he doubted his suitability--and Lake withdrew.